Hunting for Homki
by Yodeling Prospector
Summary: Homki, a little Twi'lek boy, is missing. Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, Captain Rex and Waxer are sent to find him. It sounds like an ordinary mission, except for one small detail: Homki has autism.
1. Chapter 1

He broke free suddenly and bolted away, quick as the wind. Numa called his name and reached out for her twin, but he ignored her and continued to run, off to who knew where. Numa chased after him, but that only seemed to make her brother determined to sprint faster.

She lost sight of him when he went through a crowd, and searched desperately, her eyes raking the crowd for the green-brown blur that would be Homki, for she could never her brother was more green or tan, since neither color stood out more than the other.

Numa thought she saw Homki's tooka doll on the ground, but it was just a leaf. Figures, she thought. There was no way her brother would lose track of his tooka doll. Homki never went anywhere without it. He'd carted it around practically his whole life, and it didn't seem like he would be stopping anytime soon. Numa pushed the thoughts from her head and continued through the crowd, although there was no sign of Homki.

Only when she fought her way out of the throngs of massive amounts of legs- since Numa, being only six, was much shorter than all the grown up pedestrians around her- did she see her brother. Homki was boarding a starship, without a thought about how he was almost defiantly unwelcome on board. The fact that there was a space ship here on Ryloth was weird enough, since there were almost no visitors on this planet. The only people she had met in her life that weren't Twi'leks the heroes that had rescued the planet and its citizens from rule under robots*. There had been the many identical white-armored men, and the bearded human with the glowing sword**. That was also the only time she had seen a spaceship.

Ryloth still stayed more or less in contact with other planets, but nobody really went into or out of Ryloth. Sure, everybody had small transports to travel across the ground, but there was no need for larger crafts. That's why nobody Numa knew owned a ship, and Numa knew a lot of people. Homki, although he had met as many people as Numa had, didn't seem to enjoy being in their company. If left alone, he would keep to himself. The only person Homki chose to interact with, and enjoyed spending time with, was Numa herself. Although there were times, like now, where he'd ignore her too.

The ramp to the ship closed with Homki still on board and whoever was piloting the ship took off, no doubt oblivious to the extra passenger. Numa watched helplessly as her brother was whisked away from her, and her face dampened with tears. It was just like when the bad robots (battle droids, although Numa didn't know they were called that) had taken everyone hostage- everyone but Numa that is. She had felt like she'd never see him again then, and she felt like she'd never see him again now.

Although she was almost ashamed to admit it, Numa would trade everyone else on her planet for Homki in a heartbeat. That's how much she loved her twin, even if he was a bit...different. She loved his voice, although she rarely heard it and she almost never could understand what he was saying. His eyes, which Numa was pretty sure had never locked with her own, were exactly the shade of blue that Numa's skin was. That was the only resemblance Homki had to Numa.

Last time, when the droids had taken over, those white armored men and the bearded man had saved the day. She wished they could save the day now, but she doubted it. They probably wouldn't come all the way to Ryloth for this. They had come before to help an entire planet, but would they come to help save one little boy. Numa wasn't sure, but it wouldn't hurt to ask... she turned and sprinted rapidly home.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano headed towards the landing platform where their ship to Ryloth was waiting. The mission briefing the Jedi Council gave them had been almost comically short and vague ("Missing, a little boy is. Find him, you must." Yoda had told them.) The only other information they had was the boy's name (Homki), who his family was, and that he was supposed to be on Ryloth, but wasn't. The fact he wasn't on Ryloth was fairly useless information since that was what the word _missing _implied.

"I don't see why they think three Jedi are needed just to find a missing child." Ahsoka was saying. "Not all missions are as easy as they sound." Obi-Wan pointed out. Anakin put in "Rescuing Stinky sounded easy, and that mission turned out to be a lot more than what we expected." Ahsoka realized the logic in that. This mission sounded very similar to when they had to rescue Rotta the huttlet, a.k.a Stinky.

They reached the landing platform, and were slightly surprised to see Captain Rex and Waxer waiting for them outside the ship. "We were told we'd accompany you, sir." Rex told Anakin. It was strange: Waxer's commander was Commander Cody, not Captain Rex. So why were those two coming, rather than people who had worked together many times? Well, orders were orders, thought Rex as he and Waxer followed the Jedi onto the ship. Nobody said anything as the ship lifted in the air and blasted off towards Ryloth.


	2. Chapter 2

They landed on Ryloth after a couple uneventful hours of space travel. The Jedi knew they weren't going to find Homki here, but seeing as nobody knew where he'd went there wasn't really any other place to start.

Obi-Wan and Waxer came down the ships ramp first, followed by Captain Rex, Anakin, and Ahsoka. "So, where exactly does Numa live?" Ahsoka questioned Waxer, who started to lead them off. Waxer told her that Numa's house was small and at the end of a row of identical small houses, which wasn't much information to go on. The five of them got lost once or twice, but found their way to Numa's house with the directions some slightly suspicious passerby had given them.

There was a cry of "_Nerra!_", which was the Twi'lek word for _brother_, and Numa ran up and hugged Waxer's legs. Numa had called Waxer _Nerra_ before, although this time she might have been urgent for her real brother. "You never told me you had a twin." Waxer told Numa, kneeling so they were at eye level. Numa, however, didn't speak Basic and had no idea what he was saying. Fortunately, Obi-Wan spoke Twi'lek and translated Waxer's statement for her.

She led them inside, which, despite the sunny interior, had a gloomy atmosphere. Three other Twi'leks were there, who introduced themselves as Numa's and Homki's mother, father, and uncle. They didn't give their names, however.

"_We've been searching for Homki for two days. All of Ryloth has been searched, and he's nowhere to be found._" the mother said tearfully, and which Obi-Wan translated for the others. Anakin started to point out that since Homki had boarded a space ship and it had taken off, it was very unlikely he would be on Ryloth, but he shut up after a warning glance from Obi-Wan.

"_We need to know what the ship Homki boarded looks like._" Obi-Wan told Numa in Twi'lek, realizing that Anakin's half-spoken remark had flown right over the family's heads as they didn't speak Basic. Numa replied, stating that it was big and blue. Obi-Wan shot another warning glance, this time at Rex, who had sarcastically muttered something about that being a big help. Even though they weren't understood by their hosts, it still wasn't good to say things that could have upset them had they known the language.

Ahsoka decided that they were getting nowhere talking about the spaceship, and asked for information about Homki; Obi-Wan acted again as the translator. So the family told them about their missing member- how he was both green and brown at the same time, how he didn't talk much, how he carried his tooka doll everywhere. . . although they listed of many things, Obi-Wan couldn't help but feel they were holding some things back.

At the mention of Homki's tooka doll, Numa suddenly realized something, and, wondering why she hadn't remembered it before, she dashed off.

After a couple of minutes digging around under her bed, Numa found it- her own tooka doll. She tested it to see if she was right. Sure enough, when she rotated it, it's little arm swiveled, so that it was always pointing in the same direction.

Captain Rex wondered, as Numa ran out with a small purple alien doll in her hands and grinned as if she had the answers to the world, what about a doll could cause her to regain hope so quickly. Surprisingly, because he had hovered in the background, Numa ran up to Rex himself and dumped the doll in his hands. She started talking so fast that Rex was sure he wouldn't have understood her even if he had been fluent in Twi'lek. Obi-Wan, apparently, was past Rex's definition of fluency and simply nodded and said something, if possible, even less comprehensible, although it wasn't at about a million words per second as Numa's statement was.

Obi-Wan told everyone in the room who hadn't had a clue what Numa had said, which surprisingly included Numa's own family, what Numa was so excited about. "She says that when Homki was five, he inserted a tracking system between this doll and his own. It's hooked up to a motor in the dolls arm, so that each doll points towards the other one. Homki built the systems himself, apparently." Everyone was rather stunned at that, except Anakin, who had been at about the same technological level when he had been five.

Ahsoka, who seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Anakin, remarked "Well, here's someone who has your love of gadgets, Skyguy."

Numa said they could take her tooka doll to help find Homki, and Rex stuck it in a pouch on his belt for easy access. After thanking the family for their help, the three Jedi and two Clone Troopers went back to their ship and took off, going wherever Numa's doll pointed to.


	3. Chapter 3

Anakin continued to fly the ship in the direction the tooka doll was pointing, and it was almost as boring a trip as the one to Ryloth. Ahsoka had asked, again, why so many people were needed to find one missing boy, and Obi-Wan had simply replied "You never know what will happen.". When he said that, it was bluntly obvious to the others that Obi-Wan was keeping a large chunk of information secret.

After a couple of hours of trying to pry more information from Obi-Wan, who's lips remained firmly closed, they saw the outline of their apparent destination. Obi-Wan, grateful for the distraction since the others had stopped interrogating him for his secret once they saw the planet read the description of the ships computer over Ahsoka's shoulder.

"Tuyepov," he read aloud, "is a planet half civilized and half jungle. The jungles are inhabited by ten foot tall creatures called Nelesinari. Nelesinari only prey on moving targets, and will ignore those they presume to be dead."

"Well, I hope Homki's in the civilized portion." said Ahsoka. But, of course, nothing was ever that easy, and as they drew towards the planet, Numa's doll pointed to the middle of the jungle. "So much for that." Ahsoka sighed. Anakin spoke up, "The people on ship Homki stowed in must have dropped him off once they realized he was there. Maybe they're hoping he won't come out alive." The way Anakin said _dropped him off_ made it sound as if he thought Homki had been tossed unceremoniously out of the ship as it flew over the jungle. That could very well be true, Anakin thought.

Anakin brought the ship down, and they landed. The five of them walked out of the ship and saw that the doll was pointing somewhere through the trees. "Looks like we have a bit of a hike ahead." Waxer stated. They set off. They appreciated the fact that, so far, the mission had been easy. Numa's doll helped a lot, since they weren't really searching for him, just following a path. Compared to almost every other assignment they'd had recently, this was almost a vacation. Well, thought Waxer, meeting Numa for the first time when helping Ryloth had been rather enjoyable.

They knew that the simplicity wouldn't last, though. As they rounded a corner, as instructed by the tooka doll, the almost walked strait into a Nelesinara. They all immediately feigned lifelessness, even going as far as to close their eyes. Actually, Rex and Waxer kept their eyes open, but their helmets concealed their faces anyway, so the beast didn't know the difference. It stayed for a while, lurking over them as if trying to decide if they were alive or not.

While the Nelesinara was doing this, Rex and Waxer conversed through the comm-links built into their helmets. Since they hadn't worked together before, they decided to get to know one another, and exchanged general information about themselves. As they were discussing some of their battle highlights, the Nelesinara finally went away.

Waxer informed the Jedi that it was gone, and then realized it was pointless saying it since they were already up. Of course, he thought, the force. It was hard for non force-sensitive beings, like Waxer himself, to remember how much the Jedi knew from the force.

They continued on their hike to find Homki. The Jedi now used the force to sense where the creatures were, so they only had to play dead for a minute or two at a time. Rex and Waxer continued to chat, and their conversation went unnoticed by the others. Their helmets offered the privilege of blocking their communication channel to anyone else. They took advantage of this, and the talking was private between the two brothers, as they could be called.

The walk went on for about an hour, occasionally stopping as they played dead, and none of them were remotely tired. Waxer and Rex had gone off their private channel for a bit to try to engage the others in conversation, but the three Jedi were deep in their own discussion. Oh well, thought Rex as he flipped back to his private channel with Waxer and started chatting again.

And then, about an hour and a half after they left their ship, they rounded a corner and they saw Homki.

Obi-Wan couldn't help feeling that finding him had been the easy part of the mission.


	4. Chapter 4

Homki laughed as he spun around and around, his head tails flying out behind him. One hand clutched his tooka doll while his other hand fluttered its fingers just inches in front of his eyes. His green tooka doll, unlike Numa's purple one, had a mouth- a lopsided red one that seemed to be smiling and frowning at the same time. One of its eyes was blue and the other was black; and a pink bow was set right under the doll's head tails.

Obi-Wan knelt down and grabbed the Twi'lek boy's shoulders, stopping his twirling. Immediately, Homki dropped his gaze so he was staring at Obi-Wan's beard instead of his eyes. "_Homki, we're here to take you back home._" The Jedi master said gently in Twi'lek, not forcing eye contact with the boy, who was flapping his hands and looking anxiously at the other members of his rescue squad. His gaze avoided everyone's eyes, although it did pass over the clones' helmets, noting that those had no eyes to avoid contact with.

As soon as Obi-Wan let go of Homki's shoulders, Homki resumed his spinning, making no indication that he was going to acknowledge Obi-Wan's words. After a minute or two, during which Homki ignored everybody completely, Ahsoka said to him (in Basic) "Homki, once you're home you'll be able to see Numa again." Homki paid no attention to Ahsoka as she spoke, although he showed a flicker of interest when he heard his twin sister's name.

"He just needs to get used to us." Ahsoka declared. "Fine, we'll wait for a bit." Anakin sighed.

Half an hour later, it became clear that Homki was not planning on going anywhere soon, and that _a bit_ was a relative term. It might take hours for him to finally accept them, and they didn't have that kind of time. "Come on, let's go." Ahsoka said. They got up and realized Homki was not going to follow them willingly. Ahsoka went back and grabbed his hand and tried to lead him away. He wrenched himself out of her grasp and ran up to Rex.

Without warning, he opened one of the pouches on Rex's belt. "Hey!" Rex exclaimed, grabbing Homki's wrist and wrenching his hand out of the pouch. Its contents had spilled over the forest floor, and as Rex started gathering them up, he noticed Homki pick something up. Hopefully it wasn't a grenade- Rex didn't even want to think about what would happen if the person they were trying to rescue blew themselves up with Rex's equipment. Rex wouldn't have a captains rank anymore, that was for sure. He sighed in relief as he saw that Homki had picked up Numa's tooka doll instead one of the many potentially fatal grenades the littered the ground.

As Rex carefully put the grenades back in his pouch, he noticed Homki looking at him differently than before. His gaze wasn't wary anymore, it was more or less trusting. It seemed that finding something symbolic of his sister amongst all the strangers surrounding him was the key to his acceptance.

Waxer looked down at Homki and told him "Yeah, we know Numa. I met her once, before you tweaked those dolls. Back then, all they did was squeak." Homki briefly regarded those words and then seemed to push them to the back of his brain for later reference. How he understood them, and they could tell he did, was a mystery, seeing as Homki's family didn't speak Basic, Where did he learn it? Not that it really mattered. Actually, it made it easier now Obi-Wan didn't have to translate everything anymore.

Homki now went willingly with his five companions. Anakin, perhaps thinking that Homki would talk to them if the subject of the conversation was in his comfort zone, or maybe just wanting to have a technological discussion with someone, asked him exactly how he had built the tracking devices in the dolls. The question received no answer. Instead, Homki grabbed Rex's hand. That was surprising, Rex thought. Why was he, Captain Rex, the person with the least experience in dealing with kids, the only one Homki had gone past accepting and maybe even started liking. The kid's sister had chosen to give him the doll, even though she already knew Obi-Wan and Waxer. What did he have that seemed to attract the Twi'lek twins? Actually, Rex amended as Homki pulled him forward so they could walk beside Obi-Wan, he wasn't the only one the boy had taken a liking to.

Not sure if they could get Homki to stay still in case they ran across a Nelesinara, Obi-Wan sent Waxer and Ahsoka ahead of the rest of the group. Waxer could warn them of one's presence without showing any signs of life, and Ahsoka was sent ahead just in case there was a sudden need for somebody with a lightsaber. The others would hide among the trees when there was one around, while Ahsoka and Waxer playing dead in clear view would hopefully convince the creatures that there was nothing living in the vicinity and they'd go somewhere else.

After the first Nelesinara they encountered using that system left, Obi-Wan sent Anakin up to the reconnaissance group. Apparently, a group of two was too small to convince a Nelesinara that nothing else was around. Not to mention, they had a hard time cramming two people behind one tree, and splitting up was a bad idea. With the first Nelesinara, Obi-Wan and Rex had hid behind one tree. Anakin, however, hadn't been quick enough dragging Homki behind another. A bit of persuasion from the force (Obi-Wan's doing) hadn't worked in the slightest. That was weird. Nelesinari had to be pretty dense to fall for people playing dead, yet the were immune to Jedi mind tricks. The Nelesinara had only left them alone when it had seen something scamper through the forest. Fortunately, it seemed to think that was more important than seeing what was behind the trees in front of it.

The second time they hid from a Nelesinara actually harder. Obi-Wan and Rex had managed to hide Homki behind a tree with them, but Homki wasn't exactly still or quiet. Actually, he had been jumping around behind the tree, having the two tooka dolls chitchat to each other in what Obi-Wan was pretty sure wasn't an actual language. Naturally, this had attracted the attention of the Nelesinara, which had stopped sniffing Ahsoka to lumber over to the tree that they were hiding behind.

Obi-Wan and Rex were instantaneously on top of Homki, wrestling him to the ground and pinning his arms and legs down. What choice did they have? Although Homki obviously hated it, it was better than him getting eaten- maybe all three of them would get eaten. Rex clamped his hand over Homki's mouth. Homki had bit down hard, but the glove over Rex's hand took all the impact. They hoped that Homki's slight thrashing and muffled screams would go unnoticed by the large monster peering around the tree.

After fifteen minutes, it finally left to search for food somewhere else. Those things really were pretty stupid, although they apparently weren't stupid enough for Jedi mind tricks. Rex and Obi-Wan released Homki, who stomped angrily away from them. He avoided the Jedi master and Clone captain, and they were lucky- they didn't have to force him behind anymore trees for a while. About forty minutes later though, his anger with them was forgotten and he was back to holding Rex's hand.

They hid from a couple more Nelesinari on their hike back to the ship, and Homki kept still and quiet during those times. His happiness, presumably at not being pinned to the ground each time they encountered one of the ten foot tall monsters, was almost tangible.

When they arrived to their ship, they saw huge chunks missing from it. Luck clearly wasn't on their side anymore. Why a Nelesinara (for those were the only large creatures in the jungle) had decided to eat it was beyond them, as it had never been living in the first place and was more lifeless than any of the Jedi or Clones could ever appear- even if they were really dead.

"Well, it looks like we're camping in the woods tonight." Obi-Wan remarked dryly.


	5. Chapter 5

**This is just a filler chapter.**

The campfire flickered and swayed, lighting up a small patch of woods by their now useless spaceship. The fallen branches that covered the ground made it easy to give the fire a constant supply of fuel, though they had to make sure the fire wouldn't spread.

Ahsoka had suggested that they sleep in the ship instead of in the open, but since most of the ship had been inexplicably eaten, there wasn't much of a difference. They had eaten a meal of boring ration bars. This was typical for the Jedi and Clones, since most battlefields didn't come with restaurants. Homki, however, had flat out refused to eat the processed stick of food substitute that Waxer had given him. Waxer couldn't help but compare Homki to his sister. Numa had gobbled one up during that Ryloth mission that kept popping into Waxer's mind. Homki looked as though he hadn't eaten anything in a day or two, but strangely, he didn't seem to mind.

Over on a log, Captain Rex and Obi-Wan sat watching Homki. Rex still wore his helmet. He'd seen the look on Homki's face when Waxer removed his helmet, and he decided he'd rather keep his helmet on, even if it was slightly annoying, than have Homki look at _him_ like that. Homki had no problem looking at the clone trooper helmets' "eyes", but he had glared at the top of Waxer's bald head (since he now had to avoid eye contact) and his expression had been one of shock, as if he had been betrayed. Waxer noted that both Homki and Numa had thought that clone troopers were droids at first.

Captain Rex turned to Obi-Wan and questioned "Sir, why does the kid like me so much?" Obi-Wan answered, after a couple seconds of thought, "Perhaps it's because you had his sister's toy. It helps that he probably thinks you don't have a face." He added as an afterthought, with a smile at Rex. They both turned and watched Homki, who was both there and not there at the same time. Homki's body was there, but his mind seemed to be somewhere else as he knelt in front of the fire, rapidly bringing the tooka dolls inches in front of his face and moving them further away- over and over.

"Sir, does this mission seem a bit too easy to you?" Rex asked the Jedi master sitting next to him. "Finding Homki was pretty easy, and if our ship hadn't been demolished we'd have been out of here by now. Even getting him back to the ship wasn't that challenging. Why were five people sent to get him?" Ahsoka added, joining the conversation uninvited. Obi-Wan was getting very tired of that question. Wasn't it obvious he didn't think they should know yet?

"Just getting him to the ship isn't the end of the mission, especially since we now don't have a ship. This mission is far from finished, Ahsoka. As for the difficulty level being too low, we've already had two close calls with the Nelesinari." Obi-Wan shot her statement down, and then sent her to get more firewood- in other words, leave them alone.

Anakin, meanwhile, was almost ready to put his plan into action. It was actually more of an experiment. He had switched a few wires in his com-link, making sure it wasn't explosive, of course. He pretended to try to fix it, really adding a couple more problems. He then threw it to the ground and angrily exclaimed that he couldn't get it to work. Obi-Wan stared at him. Anakin was a whiz with this kind of stuff, and he was being defeated by a mere com-link? It didn't make sense.

Homki suddenly crept forward and snatched up the communication device. He sat down with the tooka dolls on his lap and studied it for a minute. Suddenly, he was pulling wires out and reconnecting them with others. He twiddled a couple of the dials and changed some of the settings. After about two minutes of this, Homki snapped the cover back on the com-link and dumped it in Anakin's lap. Anakin picked it up and pushed a button. A bird call came out of the speaker.

Ahsoka, who was back with the firewood, noticed the small smiles that crept up on both her Jedi companions' faces.

Later that night, when they were going to go to sleep, Ahsoka pointed out to Anakin that Homki might disappear over the night. "Ahsoka, give me your binders." Anakin instructed. Rex passed them over and Ahsoka asked, alarmed "You're not planning on handcuffing him to one of us, are you?" Anakin said that wasn't his idea. Instead, he cuffed one of Homki's tooka dolls to a tree trunk. "He won't go anywhere without these, right?" Content that Homki wouldn't wander off, he slipped the key to the binders into his pocket. Homki was already asleep, and the others settled down and followed suit.


	6. Chapter 6

When the sunlight woke Anakin and the others up the next morning, Anakin was pleased to see that his idea of handcuffing one of Homki's dolls to a tree had worked- Homki was still present and accounted for. Anakin walked over to the tree, released the doll, and gave it back to its owner.

After a quick breakfast, during which Homki ate some wild berries instead of the ration bar he had rejected the previous night, Waxer opened the file on Tuyepov with his data pad. "The western half of this planet's jungle, and the eastern half is a city." He informed the others. "Well, it should be easy to find our way to the city." Obi-Wan said, pulling a compass out of a pouch on his belt. "How long of a walk is it, Waxer?" Waxer consulted the file's map and estimated that it would be at least a two day hike. It could be longer, depending on how fast Homki went.

They set off towards the eastern half of the planet. Fortunately, the Nelesinari were still asleep in treetop nests, but they'd probably wake up soon. Homki was keeping up, although his companions did have to slow their pace a bit for him to do so. He had started to skip around the group as they walked, but Ahsoka had stopped him, saying that they didn't want him to tire out. Homki had then walked alongside them, but he continued to keep his body in excess motion, swinging his arms and flapping his hands as he hiked.

After about half an hour, they came across a jagged cliff wall. To keep heading east towards the city, they'd have to climb it. Climbing it was no problem for the older group members, but what about Homki? They couldn't expect Homki to climb that cliff- he was only six! Carrying him up presented issues, too. What if he fell?

Shortly after, Homki was clinging to Obi-Wan, piggyback style. Just to make sure he wouldn't slip, Obi-Wan tied the cord of his cable launcher around both his and Homki's waists as a makeshift harness. It actually looked rather ridiculous, since the thin cable looked a lot weaker than it was. Anakin commented that at least Rotta the Huttlet could be shoved in a backpack. "I don't think that will work for this kid." he joked.

Five cable launchers shot up the cliff and dug their grappling hooks into the rocky top. As they climbed, Obi-Wan talked to Homki in a soft voice, with the hopes that it would get the boy to stop tightening his grip around the Jedi's neck. Homki's accidental stranglehold on Obi-Wan loosened slightly- at least the Jedi master could still talk, although it was rather harder to breathe than normal. When the reached the top of the cliff, Obi-Wan untied the harness that held Homki safely on his back.

About five minutes after they reached the top of the cliff, the Nelesinari suddenly woke up. Without warning, one sprang out of its tree and landed in front of the group and started towards Homki. Immediately, the three Jedi sprang in between the beast and the boy.

As soon as the Jedi ignited their lightsabers, Homki let out a piercing shriek that echoed through the trees. He couldn't help it. The sound was making his ears ring, and the blades of the lightsabers were too bright for his eyes. All he knew was that he hated everything about those weapons, and he had to get away from them _that instant_. He covered his ears with the tooka dolls as he practically flew through the forest. Rex sighed. "I'll go get him." he told the preoccupied Jedi fighting the monster, and ran after the screaming boy.

When he caught up with Homki, Rex was shocked at what he saw. Homki was writhing around on the ground. His hands clamped his dolls over his ears like earmuffs, and he kept screaming blue murder as he smashed his head into the ground.

Quickly, the clone captain seized him in a restraining hold so the boy couldn't hurt himself. After being hit twice by Homki's flailing limbs, Rex adapted his grip. He knelt down, pinning Homki to the ground so he couldn't move, much like he and Obi-Wan had done the previous day when Homki hadn't been still around a Nelesinara For a while, Rex just knelt there, restricting the movement of an autistic six year old in the middle of a meltdown.

No sooner had Homki calmed down than the others arrived, having defeated the Nelesinara. Anakin's lightsaber was still ignited. "Turn that kriffing thing off!" he shouted at his general. Technically, Rex could be demoted for that. He'd disrespected his general, and what more, tried to give him orders. But, seriously? He'd just gotten Homki to calm down, and Anakin had to repeat the cycle by not turning off his stupid lightsaber! Obi-Wan and Rex wrestled Homki, who had started screaming again, to the ground and pinned him down for the third time during the mission.

Thoroughly annoyed, Rex turned to the Jedi and said, mostly to Anakin "Don't turn those things on around Homki again. _Ever_."


	7. Chapter 7

Once Homki had calmed down for the second time, Obi-Wan and Rex ceased pinning him to the ground. Homki got up, grabbed the Clone Captain's hand, and the group resumed their journey towards the civilized half of the planet.

They now were going out of their way to avoid Nelesinari. The Jedi would perform Force-assisted acrobatic stunts through the trees to get past them undetected. Waxer, Rex and Homki couldn't do that however, so they had to find a different method. Homki had actually been the one who inspired their plan. He had been playing a game with Rex where he would hide in the bushes. Rex would walk over to where Homki was hidden, "find" him, and toss the kid in the air and catch him. The others were all rather surprised to see this side of the captain- in fact, they didn't even know he had that soft side with kids. Rex decided that the peals of Homki's laughter made up for the incredulous looks he was getting from his generals.

Anyway, Homki hiding in the bushes had given Waxer an idea. The two clone troopers had managed to uproot a large bush, which they hid under with Homki. The looks Rex had been getting before were nothing compared to the ones the Jedi were sending from the treetops now. This had to be the low point of his career, crawling through a forest under a bush.

Slowly but surely, they made their way through the forest. Waxer informed everyone that they should reach the city in a couple of hours. Apparently his original guess of the hike taking a couple days had been rounded up a bit. Now it was only a day long hike. Rex felt some extra weight on his back and realized Homki had crawled up there and was riding him like he was a horse.

Homki liked Captain Rex the most out of his five rescuers. He didn't have to actually look at Rex's eyes, but he could still make eye contact. It was like standing on opposite sides of a window- Rex could see out his helmet, but others couldn't see in. He also liked the way the helmet made Rex's voice sound slightly robotic and rather unemotional. And when Homki had been in panic mode because of the sensory overload that lightsabers gave him, Rex had been the one that went after him and tried to calm him down.

The Twi'lek liked Obi-Wan too, though not quite as much as Rex. He remembered Numa telling him about the Jedi once. About how Obi-Wan had helped save Ryloth's citizens from battle droids. Numa- he missed his twin sister. She was the only person who accepted him for who he was. Homki's parents were always badgering him to talk, or to spend time with other people instead of ignoring them. Wait- wasn't that what he was doing now? He _was_ interacting with others.

Homki switched his thoughts back to Numa. She didn't talk about him like he wasn't there. His parents did, when they didn't think he was listening. Just because he seemed "preoccupied" when he was talking to his tooka doll or rocking back and forth in a corner didn't mean he was oblivious to what was going on. Some of the things his parents said hurt, like "Why won't he talk? Is he stupid or something?" Well, he'd shown them how wrong they were by revealing his genius when it came to technology.

Numa didn't force eye contact with him. She didn't try to make him interact and seemed to understand when he just needed time to himself. Whenever Homki had a tantrum due to sensory overload or too much pressure to interact from his parents, Numa was the one who didn't watch him from the other side of the room, but actually went over and hugged him, trying to calm him down.

As these thoughts swirled around his head, Homki wanted to toss back his head and scream "NUUUMMMAAA!" at the top of his lungs until she came. But he didn't. As he'd been doing his whole life, Homki kept his thoughts bottled up inside him as he stimmed- jumping, running, shaking his head, flapping his hands. Homki's thoughts were locked up tight, so not even the Force could discover them. He hid them so deep inside him because if he didn't, they'd be ripped out and exposed to the world, and then he'd have nothing to call his own.


	8. Chapter 8

Their journey to the civilized city on Tuyepov continued. The Nelesinari had gone somewhere else, so they thought the rest of their hike was going to be easy. However, they were sadly mistaken. In time, the Jedi and Clones reached a river to deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. Not that they didn't try. Anakin was swept a quarter of a mile downstream in the span of ten seconds. However, even if Anakin could get across, the Clones and Obi-Wan still had a problem. Armor wasn't exactly a great choice of attire to go swimming in, since it dragged people down.

They tried to find a way that could get everyone across. Teleportation, hurling each other across and sprouting wings and flying were all very stupid ideas that common sense ruled out immediately. After about five minutes of contemplation, Ahsoka smacked her forehead and said "It's so obvious! We're thinking too much! Three of us are Jedi, so we can just _use the force_." When she said that, the others felt extremely stupid for not having realized that. Ahsoka, however, was thrilled that she had outsmarted her master and her master's master.

The three Jedi easily uprooted a hundred foot tree with the force and levitated it so it made a bridge across the river. They crossed the tree bridge one at a time, and Obi-Wan carried Homki across. At first he just held the boy's hand, but Homki almost fell in the water, so he switched his methods.

Once they got across Homki dropped down to the forest floor and began to hum a single droning note for an incredibly long amount of time. Rex tried to get him moving, but he was shut out as Homki continued to hum. "I think we tired him out." Waxer remarked. So they waited for Homki. They asked him a couple times if he was ready to continue walking, and after the tenth time they asked he got up and followed them through the forest.

Every once in a while, Ahsoka thought she heard a rustle of leaves behind them, but she didn't sense there was anything there with the force. However, being a padawan learner, she wasn't completely attuned to the force. Anakin was, however. He sensed something, but he didn't know what it was, but he did get the feeling that they should run. He shouted this out to the others, and they all broke into a sprint.

None of them ran faster than Homki, however. He seemed delighted to follow this command and raced off through the trees. Everybody else had longer legs than he did, yet they struggled to keep up with him. Homki looked as if he was having the time of his life. He swung his arms around as he ran, skipped and jumped. His laughter was contagious. Sadly, he tripped on a root sticking out of the ground and the moment of joy ended; his laughter abruptly changed to cries of pain.

Obi-Wan gently removed Homki's foot from under the branch. Thankfully, his ankle wasn't sprained or something like that. However, the boy was obviously shocked by the fall and needed a bit of time to recover from it.

Again, they sat and waited for Homki to unwind until he was ready to continue. The sensation that something was amiss was gone. Obi-Wan decided now was a good time to tell the others why they had to bring Homki back to his family.

"Well, for starters, Homki is a lost child who's family misses him. He should be home, not here." Obi-Wan told the others. "Yeah, but lots of people go missing. The Jedi can't be responsible for finding every one." Anakin interjected, but his master held up a hand to silence him. "You're right, we can't find every missing person. However, Homki's a special case. You've seen how good he is with technology. His skills may even rival yours, Anakin." He said with a smile.

"However, you are a Jedi, Anakin, so you can't spend much time tinkering with gadgets." The Jedi master continued "Homki does have that kind of time. Getting him back to Ryloth is very important since his twin sister, Numa, seems to be the only person who Homki can connect to." Rex thought to himself _What about me? I thought I was pretty good with the kid._ Rex received an I-know-what-just-went-through-your-head kind of glance from the Jedi. How did they know what he was thinking? He wasn't weak minded, so they couldn't infiltrate his brain with the force. "You said that out loud, sir." Waxer informed the Captain. _ Oh._ He was glad he was wearing his helmet, as it concealed his slightly reddened features. In case he was actually speaking all his thoughts out loud, Rex muted his helmet before silently (he hoped) berating himself. _Rex, pull yourself together. You're a Clone Captain- so act like one. You're turning into a softie. _Rex told himself to do this, but he couldn't even think about actually carrying out his own orders. He was a different person around Homki. Homki's presence seemed to change Rex from the gruff, militant, no-nonsense Captain he was known as into a gentler man who somehow struck a chord with the Twi'lek child.

Obi-Wan smiled, amused, and went on. "Yes, Homki has started to bond with you, Rex, but his connection with his sister is much stronger. She can get him to mold his talent into something useful for others. Numa can help Homki unlock his potential to build many wonderful things for the galaxy and possibly become the greatest technician ever."

"He's only six, and you're acting like he's going to get a job when he gets back." Ahsoka accused. "Oh, Homki's not going to be hired for a job. He does it for fun. Anakin, pass me your com-link." Obi-Wan instructed. Anakin did as he was told, and, like before, Homki's modifications made a bird call emitted from the speaker. Only this time, high up in the trees, a real bird chirped back. Obi-Wan kept pressing the buttons and different bird calls came out. The com-link seemed to be having a conversation with the bird in the tree. When the com-link repeated some of the tweets and chirps, the bird in the tree responded the same way to a repeated call.

"It appears I can now talk to birds on my com-link." Anakin laughed. Ahsoka looked awed as she said "Wow, Homki must have some special connection to animals if he can communicate with them."

Homki was up and ready to go! He sat in Rex's lap and was running the back of his hands, which, as always were clutching the tooka dolls, along the sleeve of Anakin's clothes. The smooth texture seemed to entertain the boy, although he wouldn't look anywhere near Anakin as he did it and he was tensed up, as if Anakin might suddenly spring and attack him.

The group hiked another hour, and then, finally, the reached the city. Sadly, their troubles were far from over.


	9. Chapter 9

The civilized city half of Tuyepov wasn't nearly as busy as Courascant; there were no air taxis or any other kind of flying transport. All the citizens walked, it seemed. Waxer and the others were rather surprised to see the wreckage of many buildings, and the citizens looked like they were preparing for a battle. They were making rather crude weapons that looked like they'd fall apart if something so much as touched them. Anakin asked some of the citizens where they could find a public transport that went off the planet and got no response. When Anakin asked them who they were at war against, the people just said "them", which gave Anakin no useful information whatsoever. They weren't fighting a civil war, though, since all the citizens acted perfectly friendly towards each other, and they all lined up in battle formation as one side of a fight.

Rex, meanwhile, was trying to stop Homki from running away. The hustle and bustle of the city seemed to set Homki into action mode, as if he wanted to contribute to all the movement going all around him. He wouldn't let Rex hold his hand, so Rex had to trail behind him, and if Homki strayed too far from the others, steer him back towards the others. The six of them split up into five groups (Homki was with Rex) to see if they could find a way off the planet.

Eventually, Ahsoka found a trans-planet ship, but it was closed, like everything else in the city, because everybody seemed to be part of the battle coming up. _Great, now we're stuck here for a while._ Ahsoka complained to herself. She tried to contact the others via com-link to tell them that there wasn't a way to get off the planet right now, only to find that Homki had also modified hers to make animal sounds, only Ahsoka's made monkey sounds whereas Anakin's made bird calls. After tracking down the everyone else, which took a while, Ahsoka asked if any of their com-links worked. Obi-Wan tried his, but all it did was roar.

Considering that they were useless now, the three Jedi gave Homki their modified com-links. He happily accepted them, although three com-links and two tooka dolls were almost too much for his small hands to hold.

Homki wasn't escaping the group anymore (to Rex's relief, seeing as he had been the one chasing him down every time), although the adults did have to bump down their pace a lot more than they had previously for Homki, since he was now too busy playing with the animal com-links to walk at any speed besides "_very slow"_.

"So what are we going to do now?" Waxer asked.

"Oh, I'm sure something interesting will arise" Anakin said, indicating the Tuyepov citizens lining up in lopsided battle ranks, equipped with their pathetic weapons that looked more comical than dangerous. It was fairly obvious that these people had never fought a war before.

"I wonder who they're at war with." Ahsoka mused. Just then, one of the com-links let out an impressive roar and Homki collapsed into a fit of giggles.

"Maybe their fighting the..." Anakin began and, sure enough, a vast number of angry and rather hungry looking Nelesinari lumbered into the city. The Tuyepov citizens began to fight them, but were losing spectacularly. It became clear to the Jedi and Clones that they couldn't just watch from the sidelines.

After shutting Homki in a building out of harms way, they Jedi ignited their lightsabers. Rex had a mental image of Homki covering his ears and screaming at the sound of the lightsabers. He forced the thought out of his mind, took out his rifle, at joined the fight.


	10. Chapter 10

Homki was upset. He wandered around the building Rex had shut him in. He could still hear the lightsabers ringing in his ears, and the other loud, annoying sounds caused by the battle. They were starting to make his eardrums throb. He clapped his hands over his ears, which helped a bit, but the sound was still boring into him. He couldn't stand the cacophony anymore. The source of the sounds was too close, he had to get away.

Hands still clutching his dolls and com-links and covering his ears, Homki ran around the building looking for a way out. He found a hole in the middle of a wall. After squeezing through, he ran away from the horrible sounds. When he could no longer hear the sounds Homki skipped around playing with the com-links that made animal sounds.

Fale, one of the Tuyepov citizens, was grateful for the people who were helping them fight (Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, Rex, and Waxer). Without their help, they would have probably had even more of their city destroyed. The Nelesinari were responsible for destroying a lot of buildings in the city before. Truth to be told, Fale and his fellow citizens hadn't even known the Nelesinari were coming again. They'd been building weapons for months in case they needed any for some reason or another, and had just figured out how to make clubs, spears, and other primitive weapons.

The previous time the Nelesinari came, they all just cowered in the buildings, which had been ripped apart. Now the citizens were fighting back, and they were all very confident that the Nelesinari were no match for their fighting skills. In reality, the Nelesinari a pretty equal match for even the Jedi and Clones, who had lots of experience fighting beings of all shapes, sizes, and I.Q.s. The citizens, however, were complete failures when it came to fighting.

Fale tried to stab a Nelesinara in the leg with a spear. The shaft shattered, and Fale was holding a useless fragment of a stick. He then shoved the fragments under the Nelesinara's toenails. It howled in pain, and Ahsoka leaped in the air and gave it a jab with her lightsaber. Fale now had a club had been strapped to his belt and swung it as hard as he could at the monster. Unfortunately, Ahsoka landed in front of Fale, who accidentally whacked the Jedi with the club instead of the Nelesinara. Of course, that club just had to be the one weapon that stayed intact, and Ahsoka was knocked out cold.

Anakin groaned when he saw that his apprentice had been knocked out and by someone they were_ helping_, for crying out loud! He carried Ahsoka's limp body out of the middle of the battlefield, and placed her in the same building Homki had been in, not noticing the boy had left.

Rex and Waxer were painstakingly shooting down Nelesinari down. They were annoyingly like battle droids. No matter how many they shot down, more kept coming. The incompetent citizens had all fled the battle, leaving only two clones and two Jedi, since Ahsoka had been knocked out, to fight the Nelesinari. They were running low on ammo, since it took about thirty blaster bolts to kill a Nelesinara. They'd used most of the spare cartridges on their belt in half an hour. They hadn't brought many, which had been a mistake. Then again, they didn't think they'd be fighting monsters for a bunch of "warriors" who were hiding in a library two blocks away.

Anakin and Obi-Wan were leaping around the Nelesinari, stabbing them with their lightsabers. Unfortunately, even lightsabers had a hard time penetrating the skin of the ten foot tall creatures. They aimed for the eyes, although that was easier said than done, too. They only managed to blind one out of five. One of the Nelesinari grabbed Anakin's lightsaber by the blade (apparently, the lightsabers didn't affect them at all) and hurled it into a nearby building. Anakin summoned it with the force, turned it on, and realized with dismay that it wouldn't ignite. Meanwhile, Rex and Waxer had finally run out of ammo.

Things were looking very, very, grim. It was four humans against five Nelesinari, and three of the humans didn't have weapons. Technically, Rex had a pouch full of grenades, but those would blow up at least ten streets, so he couldn't use them. Obi-Wan's lightsaber was pretty much useless, since it had no effect on the monsters.

For some reason, the humans and the beasts were quiet for a moment, and during that moment, the chattering of a monkey echoed around the city. The Nelesinari turned and ran off towards the monkey sounds.

Homki had tweaked the com-links again, so that the sounds were now very loud. He'd been playing with Ahsoka's and, after the loud monkey sounds had emitted from it, a bunch of Nelesinari had run past him, not even seeing the small Twi'lek sitting on the ground. Homki, not knowing he'd just saved peoples' lives by luring the animals away, got up and began to spin around and around.

After the relief of the Nelesinari leaving, Rex and the others went back to the place they'd left Homki and Ahsoka. They were happy to see that Ahsoka was now conscious again. However, worry replaced their joy as they realized Homki was not in the building. What if he'd gotten killed? Then, Anakin realized something. "The monkey sounds, couldn't they have been the com-links?!" Then ran off in the direction the Nelesinari did, and they found Homki in almost the exact same way they found him in the start, where the boy was happily spinning around and around.

The citizens all seemed to consider the Jedi and Clones their heroes. Fale shook their hands and congratulated them, not believing that they had almost lost. The citizens completely ignored Homki, which suited Homki fine but annoyed the others. After all, Homki had distracted the Nelesinari and lured them away with animal sounds. _Actually, _thought Anakin, _if it wasn't for Homki, we might not be here._

Now they just had to get to Ryloth. Ahsoka asked if the public cruiser would open anytime soon. "No, we stripped that down for parts to make our weapons." Fale said.

After asking a hundred people if they had a ship, none of whom did, they started to wonder how they'd get Homki home. They eventually made an announcement to the entire city that a ship was needed, and out of the thousands of people who lived in the city on Tuyepov, only fifteen owned ships. One of them agreed to fly them to Ryloth, though.

Rex, Anakin, Ahsoka, Waxer, Obi-Wan, and Homki were rather cramped in the back of the small cruiser. Luckily, though, Homki did not seem very agitated by having to be in close proximity with five other people. The child gazed out the window at the stars as the ship carried him home.

**Sorry if my battle scene was lame. There's still one more chapter left, so don't stop reading.**


	11. Chapter 11

At last, they landed on Ryloth with Homki. The trip there had taken longer than it should have, because the ship they'd traveled in had experienced a few technical difficulties, although Anakin and Homki fixed them easily. Exactly how Anakin had gotten Homki to help fix the problem instead of tweaking the ship so it did something other than what it was supposed to do was a mystery to the others. Obi-Wan decided to ask Anakin about it later. By the time they'd landed on Ryloth, Homki wasn't quite as shy around Anakin anymore. As they walked towards Numa's house, Homki looked around, happy to be back. His body seemed to radiate with excitement. He started to stim a little as he walked.

When they got there, there was a loud cry of "HOOOOOMMMMMKIIIIIIIII!" as Numa rushed out and ran to hug her brother. Homki laughed and went to meet her. Numa grabbed Homki in a hug and spun him around; Homki giggled but did not hug her back. Then, flapping his hands as he went, Homki followed his twin sister into the house. Inside, he got hugged by his other family members, but didn't laugh when they did it. He seemed to reserve his laughs for Numa.

The five people who'd gone to find Homki watched the reunion from outside the house. Numa suddenly looked up at them (although she was mainly looking at Waxer, whom she knew the best) and said in Twi'lek "_Thank you for finding my brother._" , although only Obi-Wan understood it. "_It was rather enjoyable except for a giant battle in the end._" Obi-Wan responded, and Numa giggled before questioning "_There was a battle?_" Obi-Wan's answer to that was simply nodding.

Unfortunately they couldn't spend too much time on Ryloth. Fale, the incompetent warrior who'd flown them from Tuyepov to Ryloth turned out to be really annoying and rude. Fale had told them as they left the ship that he'd leave in half an hour, and if they weren't back by then that he'd just leave them there.

The five guests started saying bye to Homki, who was holding Numa's hand. He completely ignored Ahsoka's and Waxer's farewells, which didn't surprise them, seeing as he'd ignored those two the entire trip. Numa said bye for her brother, though. Homki glanced at Anakin's chest, but not his face when Anakin said bye. He looked at Obi-Wan's beard when the Jedi master bid him farewell by saying "I think we can expect great things from you, Homki", even giving him the slightest hint of a smile. When it was Rex's turn, Homki let go of Numa's hand and ran up to the Captain. Rex knelt down and said said his farewell to the kid.

Not much was actually said during Homki and Rex's parting. Rex had simply said "Bye, Homki." and gave his hand a slight squeeze. Homki grinned at Rex, again looking at where Rex's eyes would be had he not been wearing the helmet, and Rex gave Homki a small smile, which was unseen by anyone. The Captain told the boy "Until we meet again" and, since he was still holding Homki's hand, formally shook it. Then Rex stood up and went back to the others.

Numa and Homki watched them walk off towards their ship. Once, the Jedi and Clones turned around and saw Numa waving one of Homki's hands and one of her own.

Once Fale had dropped them off on Coruscant with a couple of last rude remarks (for he seemed to have forgotten already that they had saved his home from destruction) instead of going to the Jedi temple, Obi-Wan treated the other four to lunch at Dexter's Diner.

After being served by a waitress droid, Obi-Wan asked Anakin how he had gotten Homki to help him with repairs. Anakin said that he had communicated with the boy through the Force, which was, according to Anakin, strong but hidden in Homki. "He has a high number of Medi-Chlorians, though not quite high enough that he could become a Jedi." Anakin informed the others.

"Still, he can communicate with animals, which takes a lot of Force power." Ahsoka pointed out "He probably told the Nelesinari to leave him alone when he was in the forest by himself."

"I wonder why Master Yoda sent all of us on this mission." said Waxer. "Actually, I convinced him this mission was worthwhile." Obi-Wan admitted "When Homki's family gave a description of him, and said he was good with technology and he had autism, I knew we had to go get him. I did some research in the archives and discovered that there have actually been five Jedi who have had autism."

Obi-Wan paused for a bit and then went on "That information somehow helped convince Yoda that we should get Homki- don't ask me why it did, I don't know." They all pondered this for about a minute and then decided that Yoda was rather mysterious, so they would probably never find the answer to that. "But why did he send all of us?" Ahsoka asked, and Anakin gave his opinion "Well, Yoda seems to know a lot that others don't, right. Well, maybe he sensed that he'd need to send a lot of people-he might have even sent too few. We almost lost that battle, and we were all needed there."

"As for the part where I said he was good with technology, we can never have too many technicians, can we?" Obi-Wan smiled a bit and continued "Anyway, you've seen what Homki's done already. So just imagine what he'll be making in a couple years. Maybe when he's older, he can work at the Tech Center in the Jedi Temple." he added as an afterthought. They all thought that, whatever Homki would make would actually turn out to be quite useful- his tracking devices in the tooka dolls and animal communicators had already been quite useful.

They spent two more hours in Dexter's Diner, talking about the mission, along with other stuff like how the reporter on HoloNet, which was being shown on screens at the diner, wasn't doing a very good job as he kept laughing at random points and saying "like", "um" and "and so, uh, yeah". It really was nice, Rex thought as they did this, to get some time off and just enjoy themselves.

They all wished they could have more time off, but they paid the waitress and left, too soon for anyone's liking. As they walked into the Coruscant sunset, Obi-Wan wondered what the future had to hold.

**And that's the end! I hope I cleared up a few confusing points in the story. Thanks for the reviews everybody, especially ACEamazombie and 1986 Celtics, who reviewed most, if not all, of my chapters. Well, anyway, I hope you liked the story. **


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